Later that night, Pam sat alone in her hotel room. She hadn’t heard anything else from Jim but she expected he would be preoccupied with family and Larissa at the hospital. She picked up a bottle of wine on the way to the hotel and planned to stay in and watch whatever she could find on cable.
She didn’t exactly know what her role was currently. She didn’t want to be too pushy with Jim but she also couldn’t deny that Jim paying for a two-night stay at a hotel meant he probably wanted her around. So she settled on letting Jim take the lead.
After sinking onto the bed and settling into a rerun of Friends, she heard a knock on her door. Her brow furrowed with confusion. Slowly, she stood and peeked through the hole in the door, quickly smiled, and swung it open. Jim was standing there with his hands in his pockets. He gave her a half-smile.
“Hi.”
“Hey,” she responded, happy to see him smiling. Before she could stop herself she pulled him into a tight hug. The feel of his strong, lean arms around her made her stomach flutter. It might have been solely in her mind, but she thought she felt him squeeze her a little tighter, gripping on to her as they held their embrace. As much as she wished she could stay there, she pulled away from him.
“Sorry. I’ve just been wanting to do that since you told me about the accident at the office. I’ve been worried about you.”
“Don’t be sorry,” he said, still smiling. “I needed it.”
He held out his arm to hand something to Pam. “Here’s your jacket. I didn’t realize I carried it in with me when you dropped me off. Thought I’d return it.”
She took it from him. She could tell from his face and his body language that he was a little more relaxed. Still a little shell shocked maybe, but an obvious difference from how he looked during their car ride. She tried her luck.
“Hey, I just opened a bottle of wine. Want to come in…?” Her face flushed as she realized how that sounded. “I just mean, you could probably use it and I wouldn’t mind an update on your sister. That’s all I meant.”
“Relax, Beesly. I’d love a glass. It’s been a long day.”
Pam moved out of the way so he could walk in and Jim pointed at the TV.
“Great episode.”
“What? Oh yeah. It was the only thing on.” She poured him a glass of wine in a plastic cup the hotel provided. “It’s super classy around here, Halpert. Hope you’re not intimidated.” She handed it to him, her stomach flipping as their fingers brushed.
Pam sat down on one side of the bed and was surprised to see Jim sit on the other side, rather than the chair by the desk. Resting against the pillows, he laid his head back, flung his arm over his eyes, and let out a deep sigh. Pam shifted slightly to face him.
“Want to talk about it?”
Jim lifted his head and looked at her.
“Just a hell of a day. Larissa is doing incredibly well, considering. Her pain is being managed without making her too out of it. The doctors said they are amazed with how far she has come in just one day. Which doesn’t surprise me. She’s stubborn as an ox.” He chuckled. “But I’m not going to lie, Pam, it was really difficult to see her in the hospital. She’s scraped and bruised everywhere. Just hard to see my little sister that way, you know?”
“I can only imagine. I’m so sorry.” She instinctively put her hand on his shoulder. “And...her legs?”
“Still no movement from her, but they did a CT scan and the good news is that her spinal cord is intact and no vertebrae were fractured or anything. Looks like mostly bruising, but it’s causing her to lose all feeling in her legs. Doctors say its just a ‘wait and see’ kind of thing. It could have been a million times worse, though. She was extremely lucky. If she was just a second behind where she happened to be on that bike when she got hit...I don’t even want to think about it.” He shook his head as if to shake off the hypothetical.
She looked at him sitting next to her in the bed. He looked exhausted and she felt her heart pulled to him in a different way than she had ever felt. She wanted to wrap around him and comfort him and while she knew she had likely blown her chance to be anything more than a friendly shoulder for him to lean on, that didn’t stop her from wanting to take his heart in her hands and protect it from the hurt, the pain, the fear.
“Tell me about her,” she said softly.
A true smile came across Jim’s face. It was evident what his sister meant to him.
“Oh man, where to start? She and I are buddies. Pete and Tom were always kind of jerks to us as kids, but she and I stuck together. My pranking days started early, Pam. One time, we ate all the marshmallows out of the box of Lucky Charms, took a polaroid of us eating them, then sealed the bag back up with super glue. Put the picture of us eating the marshmallows at the bottom of the box. Harmless stuff, really. But fun for us.”
They were both grinning. Pam loved seeing him talk about Larissa. His adoration of her was apparent. She continued listening to him talk about her, admiring the glimmer in his eyes.
“She’s just kind of always been the person I could tell anything to. I mean, we poke fun at each other constantly, but it’s always out of love.”
“I’ve never really heard you talk about her. She sounds great.”
“I think I’m just really protective of her. No...I know I am. She’s so friendly that she gets bulldozed by people if she’s not careful and I’ve seen people take advantage of her. So I kind of keep her close to my chest, if that makes sense.”
“No, I totally get it. You’re a good big brother.”
“I just wish I could move her legs for her.” His face fell.
“Hey,” she said, making him look at her. “Tell me your favorite memory with her.”
“Hmmm...there are a lot. Okay, this one is going to sound so random and non-specific, but it’s what came to mind. We were in high school. I was a senior and she was a sophomore. It was right before I graduated and left for college and we decided to just take a drive around Scranton for the heck of it. We rolled the windows down, blasted ‘Semi-Charmed Life’ by Third Eye Blind and just belted it at the top of our lungs. Seems like such a small memory, but I remember just feeling so carefree and happy. Things felt simple.”
Pam looked at him and smiled. “Do do doo, do do doo doo…”
Jim grinned and dove into an incredible impersonation of Stephan Jenkins, every lyric memorized. They both broke out into laughter.
————
They continued the night talking about Larissa and sharing stories of both of their childhoods. Pam felt lighter than she had in months as she watched the Jim she knew emerge from hiding. Eventually, conversation stopped when they realized the movie Fargo had come on TV. Jim remembered it was one of Pam’s favorites, so he turned up the volume and suggested they watch it. There was no way Pam would say no to that.
It didn’t take long before Jim had dozed off, emotionally and physically exhausted, Pam assumed. Slowly, his head began tilting down off the pillows, finding its way onto Pam’s shoulder. She was positive the sound of her rapidly beating heart would wake him. She stayed still because, after all, it would be rude to wake him after the day he had, she told herself.
She felt his phone buzzing through his pocket, but Jim didn’t so much as stir. Knowing it could be about Larissa, she gently nudged him awake.
“Jim...Jim...your phone.”
Jim sat up, slightly disoriented, and rubbed his eyes. He grabbed his phone, looked at who was calling and stood up quickly from off the bed.
“Crap,” he muttered. “I forgot to tell—“ he cut his sentence short as he put the phone to his ear. “Hey Karen…”
Pam watched Jim walk out into the hallway, still feeling the warmth from his head on her shoulder.
Author's Chapter Notes:
This is the second part of one update, so make sure you don’t miss the chapter before this one. ;)
Chapter End Notes:
Almost forgot about Karen, didn’t you? Jim sure did.
I also can’t take credit for the Lucky Charms prank. I read about it one time in a Buzzfeed article or something and recalled it for this story.
I also can’t take credit for the Lucky Charms prank. I read about it one time in a Buzzfeed article or something and recalled it for this story.
